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IF there really was such a "grating discordance" in the expression without the Comma present, then WHY OH WHY did not one Greek scholar, scribe, or exegete beyond the alleged Gregory to the present day not remark about such?

First the premise is wrong.

When Desiderius Erasmus wrote about thetorquebit grammaticos in his annotations on the heavenly witnesses, why do you thing the grammarians were squirming or tortured?

If this first part gets noted, I'll plan on continuing with the response.

brandpluckt
So Avery's buddy, through an accident of birth, supposedly knows Greek. I live in North Carolina where there are nothing but native English speakers. The vast majority do not know standard English grammar or have obtained any special mastery of the language. Why would I care if they do or do not believe in the genuineness of the Heavenly Witnesses? Is this individual a KJVO? Where did he go to school? What has he published? What breakthrough did he make? Why should anyone care what this individual thinks about anything?

Simply because what he writes clearly shows familiarity and skill with the Greek language material. I will give two examples:

Ilias has emphasized "totals" as the true exception of neuter substantives with masculine grammar. "Totals" he likely got from Google translate, what we would call a multitude or collection, or set or group. This is exactly as referenced in Parkhurst's grammar and represent the only exceptions noted by Barry Hofstetter in his 'gotcha' attempt contra Eugenius Bulgaris. Apparently, for a native Greek, this is kindergarten or grade school grammar, explaining why Eugenius would not bother with the mini-exception.

Ilias emphasized the "hole" in the neuter grammar. Especially how the masculine grammar is on both sides.
masculine-neuter-masculine
(and note the second masculine has the three that points back to the water, spirit and blood)
This is the type of special element of discordance that a native speaker will feel. Since the writers of the grammar books, like Daniel Wallace, are not fluent in Greek, and can not really hold a conversation in Greek, this is something he simply will not recognize, or mention, or be able to 'feel' in discourse.

No, Ilias is not a KJV advocate or defender. And we became friends after I noticed the discussion on the James Snapp forum.

Euthymius
As I have mentioned before, Spiros Zodhiates -- a native-born Greek -- clearly rejects the Comma as non-authentic (listen to his NT recording in Modern Greek pronunciation). So then what? Ditto with Johannes Karavidopolous, who at the University of Thessalonika has been working on a critical edition of the lectionary text -- does his opinion matter as much as the Averian "buddy"? I could name a few more Greek native speakers, e.g., Theodore Stylianopolous at Holy Cross Orthodox Seminary who thinks the same. So is there some point to be made by Avery here?

And I could name some others, including a Jehovah's Witness in Thessalonika who has written a book on the heavenly witnesses. And a woman in Thessalonika who is a bit of a textcrit fav.

As Frederick Nolan pointed out, a high view of the scriptures would mean no solecisms. The norm in scholarship today is a low view, with excuses for grammatical corruptions, including the simplest one, John blundered.

Plus, they often have hitched their star to the corruption text. So, if they are Bible believers (as much as possible with corruption texts and the Westcott-Hort recension) they will simply try to find excuses for the solecism.

Did Spiro Zodhiates discuss the grammar? If not, his support of the corruption text would mean nothing. He has a history of publishing competing corruption texts.

With any of these men and women, if they have not spoken specifically about the grammatical discord question, they are likely simply following Critical Text theory, without giving any value-added.

This was from David Robert Palmer (he may be inactive on BVDB) on the NT Textual Criticism forum:

David Palmer
Azim Mamanov, it makes no difference about the gender, because the second "these three" in v. 8 cannot be referring again back to the three in v. 7 as you say, because then the three substantives the Spirit, and the water, and the blood in v. 8, would be a lone clause dangling in space connected to nothing. He was saying that the "these three" phrase in verse 8 was referring to the 3 substantives in v. 7, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, for the reason that they were more in gender agreement. But he was also saying that the phrase at the end of v. 8, was referring back to v. 7. That would leave the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, in v. 8, dangling in space and connected to nothing. On the contrary, τρεῖς εἰσὶν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ is referring to the the Spirit, and the water, and the blood in v. 8.

Now, it is quite clear that he is wrong, that the heavenly witnesses makes the two clauses into one grammatical unit guided grammatically by the Father and the Word to be of masculine gender."That would leave the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, in v. 8, dangling in space"

Ironically, that is exactly what is wrong with Hofstetter's theory. He says they have no impact or connection to the grammar, they are dangling in space.

This is similar to Snapp's "discord is discord". They try silly comments and because they are part of the textcrit club, no comment is made.

Why is there no protest about the KJVO errors of Waite, Riplinger, and Ruckman?

Waite said there were 20 MS that contained the CJ? He counted MSS twice because he cannot discern the difference between the Scrivener and Gregory numbers. Maynard corrected this blunder but we have yet to hear from Waite.

Ruckman cited no MS evidence to speak of, for the CJ in his 1970 book The Christian's Handbook of Manuscript Evidence.

Maybe Avery can tell us what 150-170 AD MS of the Old Syriac has the Comma. Note how both of them list the Council of Carthage, where the CJ was cited by Victor Vita or Victor Vitensis, is listed by both Ruckman and Riplinger as the year 415 AD instead of 484 AD. Somebody copied another's sloppy homework.

There are so many errors in the two statements than time will permit.

Now, anybody who watches the Facebook threads will see me correcting AV defender errors frequently, including many of those above.

There is one thread that really is an important correction, since for many it is a fundamental AV argument.

Michael Maynard (1955-2014) covered the double counting error in his 1995 book, which goes back to a Carl J. Drexler article in 1979 in the DBS mag. Since afaik I do not use Donald Waite's scholarship anywhere, and the error was decades back, and Waite only had the error way back when, and nobody makes it anymore, it is not a live issue. I did have some correspondence on correction with Waite, he had a mistaken Burgon quote (that your group noted) and I believe he did make the correction. And I could check if I brought this up or not, I did discuss it with Michael.

Similarly, I tried to have David Cloud make an important correction in his Frank Logsden material, his response was quite disappointing.

Errors in Ruckman's heavenly witnesses writings (you say maybe from Riplinger) still pops up occasionally, and when I do I put in a correction post. In some cases, I try to figure out the exact source for how he got to the error, as with any claims involving Syriac and Tatian. This actually came up a few months ago. I concluded that it was the Syriac 1555 edition of Moses of Miriam that likely led to the Syriac error.

Similarly, the claim of an exact year like 157 for the Old Latin apparently comes from Beza. I question that, and would like to research it, but in that case the year is so close to the reality that it is a low priority. In fact, it is very possible that the Old Latin translations were even earlier. I do tell people to be aware that any exact date is questionable.

================

Some of this I could put on a thread similar to the "two lines" post. To have handy for readers.

================

The Riplinger and Ruckman lists.

Old Syriac - wrong, maybe from Ruckman, how he got to that is interesting.

Old Latin and Italic as separate entries is a matter of definition of text-lines, I would not do it that way.

Cassian was actually in one of the official apparatuses, UBS 3. He should not be included unless an actual source is delineated. This has been an interesting question for me, especially after an Orthodox fellow on one forum claimed he used the verse. This is one interesting spot.

John Cassian - On the Incarnation (Book VII)
For God, says David, shall plainly come; our God, and shall not keep silence. And He surely came and did not keep silence, who before that He in His own person uttered anything after His birth, made known His advent by both earthly and heavenly witnesses alike, while the star points Him out, the magi adore Him, and angels declare Him.http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/35097.htm

And I even made the 415 AD error myself a couple of times in early writings, I have corrected it any of the rare times it pops up.
Pithanasius - looks like a typo for Athanasius

Cassiadorius -> Cassiodorus

Vadmarium A.D.380, Vigilius A.D.484, Victor-Vita A.D.489The first is Contra Varimidum, I have written separately about all these evidences.

And I tend to cite the Council of Carthage as Eugenius, rather than Victor Vita or Victor Vitensis, however I could check all that.

===============

The list from Riplinger, even with its various errors, is overall far more accurate than that of the Critical Text apparatuses and writers and actually omits many solid evidences. Starting with Origen, Hundredfold Martyrs and the Expositio Fidei discovered by Caspari. And I do have a series of posts on TC-Alternate that go over the heavenly witnesses errors in the CT apparatuses.

Yet, I do not make that a big issue, as I do not make the errors of Ruckman and Riplinger a big issue.

Euthymius
Waite didn't even attempt to do his own research -- he simply accepted the erroneous data claimed by then-90-year-old pastor Carl Drexler who lived near him, and simply republished it. So it was Drexler who couldn't tell the difference between Gregory and Scrivener numbers, and who also even claimed a particular Latin MS as being Greek "evidence" for the Comma.

More of a problem than the article not being checked when published was the lack of a clear correction in succeeding issues. I looked for one and did not find any.

As for Wizanburgensis, Krans has that as Dabney misreading Lachmann, and then carrying forward. Again, if I remember, Michael Maynard had the correct information.

the Latin Vulgate quotes from Hales and Porson through Horne and Scrivener

BVDB is analyzing an error from Michael's book, one we discussed in Sept, 2007. There was a complexity because of Horne quoting William Hales misquoting Porson, with Marsh and Travis and Scrivener being in the discussion mix.

Michael MaynardVery good. Here my quotation (from Porson!) just does not make sense. Thanks.I think that is factual error no. 2. So far only two is better that 22!

And I did gently chide Michael -

RIght. You "should have" caught that on the "smell test". ( I realize that is easy to say after the fact ! with lots of time and Google resources)

Michael also had put out an errata sheet, but that does not touch on this question.

=============================As an aside, Middleton has a quote that could also mislead, or help, or not (I am not checking all the details here right now) because it is about the final phrase of the earthly witnesses, and not the inclusion of the heavenly witnesses. http://books.google.com/books?id=0LfTEuP9cV0C&printsec=titlepage#PPA451,M1Middleton
cutting out that clause in the eighth verse. ... What is here said of the Lateran Council derives some confirmation from what the Professor has asserted, (p. 152.) that twenty-nine Latin MSS., " in general the fairest, the oldest, and the most correct," have the clause of ver. 8.
In fact, the 29 "fairest" from Porson may refer to that phrase, not verse 7. However, I am not checking all that right now.

===========================

Brandpluckt raises various interpretative and evidence issues, which I would be happy to discuss with him directly.

James Snapp - "I believe that Acts 8:37 should be retained in the text. "

The discussion about Acts 8:37 was interesting. James Snapp did a good paper on the verse. His normal weakness is undervaluing the significance of the mass of Greek mss., but that is not a problem with this verse.

Here is a correction.

gconan
"I did not know that 15% of Greek Manuscripts supported the verse, thanks for the link to James Snapp. I believe he was just stating that the verse had ancient support, not that he thought it was original. "https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/bibl...t6080-s50.html

Conclusion
I believe that Acts 8:37 should be retained in the text. If it is accompanied by a footnote, the footnote should be balanced: the footnote should inform the reader that although the verse is not in the majority of manuscripts, nor in the oldest manuscripts, it has very early and widespread patristic support.